Obama addresses congress at the SOTU speech

In the State of the Union speech, President Barack Obama is addressing the Congress, with the main highlights found below. The text has been obtained from the official Obama's prepared full speech text:

- Obama first emphasized that the generation's task is to build a strong middle class, which should be achieved through the government working 'on behalf of the many' not few. Referring to the soaring deficit, he said proposals will not increase deficit by 'single dime', with a government that acts smarter not bigger. Obama said 'deficit reduction alone is not an economic plan.'

Obama proposed 'off-shoring tax' to set minimum on offshore earnings, while also calling for a minimum wage to increase to $9/hour. With regards to the recent nuclear test conducted by North Korea, Obama said US to lead the world in taking firm action in response to North Korean threats, considering to strengthen US missile defense.

The President of the US also unveiled plans to strengthen bilateral transatlantic trade deals with the European Union. Obama said: "Tonight, I am announcing that we will launch talks on a comprehensive Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the European Union – because trade that is free and fair across the Atlantic supports millions of good-paying American jobs.”

Feb 13, 2013

Forex: USD/JPY flat around 93.30

With Nikkei index slightly lower for the day around the 11350 points, down -0.19%, and local data better than expected, tertiary industry activity for Japan at +1.4% vs. +0.8% and coming from a -0.4%, best increase in a year, USD/JPY remains mostly unchanged for the Asia-Pacífic session so far at 93.34, while US President Obama adresses the state of the union speech.

“USD/CAD remains relatively well supported,” say Toronto FX Research Team at TD Securities, “on the basis of the bullishly-oriented DMI oscillator,” they add, “so we rather think that losses should remain relatively shallow intraday,” the team concludes.